


Spitting Cotton

by Caligraphunky



Category: Xiaolin Showdown (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Reference to cancer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 08:30:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/620121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caligraphunky/pseuds/Caligraphunky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clay's father dies, and the monks must help their friend through his hardest journey. Written from a solicited prompt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spitting Cotton

**Author's Note:**

> Asked for a prompt on tumblr and that I received. I am clearly not the only one.
> 
> Title is taken from what I'm told is a Texan colonialism, "so dry I'm spitting cotton."

Clay wasn’t in the mood for company, but he was even less in the mood for getting spied on.

“I know you’re there,” he said, voice hoarse and quiet but even. Leaning out of his bedroom stall and turning his head only slightly towards the entrance to the monk’s shared bedroom was enough to see them: Omi, Kimiko, and Raimundo mashed up against the door frame, trying to be as quiet as possible, peaking through to watch him as they pretended they weren’t there. “Ya’ll ain’t foolin’ nobody.”

Kimiko and Rai exchanged concerned glances, while Omi looked at the floor and shuffled his feet in chagrin. Clay’s voice had taken on an edge they had never heard from him, nor could they place. It wasn’t anger with them, but he didn’t seem sad either. He just looked insensible, red-rimmed and half-lidded eyes pointed at some spot on the wall with no indication that he was seeing anything but the swirl of emotion in his head.

“Clay, are you okay?” Kimiko spoke first, pushing past Omi and taking a few tentative but quick steps into the room. “You kind of…ran off this morning.”

“After you received that letter.” Omi followed her, his hands clasped together in front of him nervously. “We are most concerned for you.” He glanced towards Kimiko searchingly and, when she returned the glance with a slight nod, back to Clay more knowingly. “It has to do with your family, does it not?”

“Your dad take a turn for the worse?”

The remark earned Raimundo a glare from Kimiko and a condemning look from Omi. Clay clutched the letter tight enough to crumple it. They’d been trying to ease into this slowly, but when Kim and Omi saw the expression on Raimundo’s face, their own faces softened. It was the look of someone who could see black clouds on the horizon and was just waiting for the storm to start. Clay’s father had been sick for months now, and, while the Bailey family wasn’t technically inclined, they’d been good at keeping him, and the monks by extension, in the loop through frequent letters. They knew when the Bailey patriarch had gotten better, then worse, then a little better, then much worse.

Clay cleared his throat and held out the letter. Kimiko took the letter, while Raimundo straightened up and closed the distance to the rest of the group.

The letter was from Clay’s sister, Jessie, a hand scrawled note on a few sheets of notebook paper with the corners torn into a hasty fastener. The handwriting was messy, written fast and angrily as though she had been taking out her anger and grief on the paper itself. There were dark splotches of ink all over, mostly in the spots where the words turned into a rant against idiot doctors and “darn fool” nurses.

“I knew it was comin’,” Clay said, before anyone could say anything. “I did.” He pushed his hat up, brushing his hair to the side before he looked directly at his friends. His voice was even softer than before, as though he didn’t trust himself to speak any louder. “My kin told me, an’ I thought I’d had enough time t’ adjust.”

He reached up and wiped at his eyes without realizing that he needed to. “Thought I’d be OK when it happened,” and his voice was starting to shake, “that I just needed to see it comin’ and-”

Clay’s voice was broken with a sob. “I…I wasn’t even there. Can’t even work out what I was thinkin’, not goin’ home to see him.” He wiped at his eyes more furiously, though it wasn’t helping. “I wrote to him, but I thought I had time before goin’ out and with the Shen Gong Wu were revealin’ themselves fast as jackrabbits I just…I didn’t think…”

Words weren’t coming anymore. They were strangled and cut with sobs. Clay put his hand over his eyes as tears fell with nothing to hold them back.

He only looked up when Kimiko knelt down in front of him and took his free hand in both of hers, gently squeezing, before moving one hand around to his back. He was then aware when Omi pushed his way under his arm to hug him, his grip strong for someone so small. And he managed a brief smile when Raimundo put his hands on both of his shoulders and pressed his chest to Clay’s back.

Clay cried in grief and regret, while the other monks let him know through simple gestures that his pain was their pain too.


End file.
